It was midafternoon on a weekday, and Ruben was feeling… boozey. Bit early for that. But not too early, so he was okay with it.

Having done some snooping in the days following that first Agricultural Club meeting, he had established that Myffi was normally in class at this time. (It was worth noting that ‘snooping’ here was just another word for ‘chatting up Heather’. With a little sweet talking, she was always more than happy to spill the beans on literally anything she was aware of, as long as he was careful to make his inquiries general enough that she dumped out the beans he wanted instead of asking her directly and getting a shut-down arrogant enough to rival his own.)

Having done some further snooping, this time in the form of poking around the woods bordering the new garden plot, he had established the perfect site for his needs: sheltered by thick tall bushes, kept moderately dry by nearby pines, and close enough to the garden to be convenient while far enough not to be stumbled into. Here, his block from Ancient Runes had come in handy. Ruben had used a combination of Nauthiz and an inverted Uruz to strengthen his boundary rune with a compulsion charm that should prod other students to walk at an angle and never quite make it past. Of course, if they did get through, his second runic layer contained a Biting Jinx that would, more or less, cause a sensation comparable to being munched on by an army of invisible giant beetles. Fun times, indeed.

Having realized that their crop wouldn’t be ready for harvest any time soon, because the club leader was some sort of pacifist who wanted everyone to have ample time to brainstorm and review ideas about what to plant and where and blah blah blah, Ruben had feigned overt interest in the baffling dietary habits of Myffi and her peers at the club. He had subsequently picked up through the conversation that she worked at a grocery on Pearl Street, which was not nearly as interesting as learning there was a grocery on Pearl Street. Not exactly a real grocery, as it threw around a lot of labels like ‘organic’ and ‘GMO-free’ and walking through it basically read the same to him as a gibberish conversation with the Welsh girl. But it was real enough that it sold potatoes.

Having acquired potatoes, plus a bag of sugar and a mix of grains and odd powdery things from the baking section that he figured would do the trick, he had casually smuggled it to the good old fake outdoors in his duffel bag. There he began his first round of production, and there he realized how easy it was. Fan, why hadn’t he thought of doing this sooner? Home vodka brewing was a totally feasible career option. Ruben had started small - just a kilo of potatoes, some water produced by wand, and corresponding ratios of everything else. There was a cooking part, easily completed by charms, and a mashing part, which suited his biceps fine, and then a fermenting part, wherein he divided up the mixture between different containers and waited. He wasn’t sure if a wooden casket (not the death type) or a glass bottle or whatever else was best, and his sister’s boyfriend, Jocke, had been less than helpful when Ruben messaged him for advice via giving him supportive evidence of a variety of containers and no firm opinions. But he’d wound up just deciding to try everything, and then waited. And waited.

And finally he cracked one of the bottles open, and now he was a bit boozey.

Future Ruben would probably think it fortunate that he had emptied his experimental vodka into a standard water bottle, re-set his runestone, and left his production site before sampling it. Future Ruben would probably also be skeptical of how the liquid was more opaque and thicker than desireable, and the smell was off, too. Current Ruben wasn’t thinking too hard about any of that, though. Current Ruben couldn’t have cared less about putting distance between himself and his site, which was alright for now, since he already had made some distance and wasn’t likely to move farther any time soon. Current Ruben also wasn’t paying attention to the taste or texture lingering in his mouth, although Current-in-a-little-bit Ruben would probably start paying attention once he realized that he didn’t have more of it. Really the only thing Current Ruben was thinking about with any level of concentration was his hair.

He was lying in the middle of the Quidditch pitch, the now-almost-empty water bottle beside him, and very carefully straightening out his hair in a wide fan around his head. Running his fingers through the long blonde tresses was making him think of Holland, and when some of it got carried away in the wind and flopped over his face it reminded him of Kaye, and when he got confused about why his hair was straight, Marissa came to mind. He began to re-imagine the last (first?) time that he’d had his hands in Marissa’s hair - but somehow, as enjoyable as that experience had been, it didn’t stick with him for very long now. Because a single loose hair was tickling over his nose.

Puffing his cheeks out, Ruben blew it away. Then he reconsidered and collected a small sample of hair, attempting to drape it across his upper lip, most of it landing on his nose again. “I should start to grow a moostache,” he announced to the clouds overhead, his voice both louder and more thickly accented than usual. “A long, long, loooong and spirally moostache.” Twirling his finger in midair as he spoke, he traced a broad spiral of fizzling red sparks. Whoops, he hadn’t meant to do that. But it was a nice blood red. Very pretty. Very metal.

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One way or another Rose found herself back on her feet, and she chose to accept the reality in which Ruben had not helped her up, even if helping her up had meant pushing her off him. Irritated, she... more